In Italy a year ago i fell in love with a gum that tasted like cough syrup... it was awful and amazing all at the same time... i bought a dozen packs to bring home... Europe is filthy with amazingly yummy/disturbing candy... makes me wanna go back now...

This is one of my favorite things about you.

The only halfway-decent thing from Brach's is caramels.

And I'm trying to remember the brand of ghastly "spice"-flavored gumdrops I wasted my allowance on during some kids'-summer-movie-series showing of The Yearling or Old Yeller or something, long ago. Still makes me cringe; tasted like I imagine toilet-bowl cleaner would.

When I'm in the mood for something like that, I just do shots of Jager.

Purple clove beats red cinnamon because you can only get clove in Brach's jelly beans and in NECCO wafers. In addition to the Just Born tamales, Brach's make a cinnamon hard candy as do many generic makers.

@3 that was probably Brach's, too.

Haha! Awesome, Schmader. My parents were fans of these when I was a kid and it took a few years of objections before these spiced abominations stopped appearing in our Easter baskets.

Now I have a kind of nostalgic fondness for them.

Also, Brach's jelly nougats are THE BEST THING EVER.

@8 I thought that too, until I was in Belgium and tasted "real" nougat.

These jellybeans are tricksters, just waiting for the unaware seven year old to munch down on what they think is delicious fake lime flavor only to find the taste of mouthwash. I fell for their colorful lying colors many times.

I'll save my seasonal dollars for the Oreos with the springtime blue filling, thanks.

I grew up eating those. If you don't like them then I have a simple solution for the, DON'T EAT THEM.

@10 Lime flavor is always natural, that's why lime-flavored candy is disappearing. If you add yellow and blue food coloring and cheap-as-dirt malic acid, you can make "sour apple" candy ever so simply.

I'm a big fan of BRACHS' (how do you pronounce that, anyway?) Jelly Bird Egg, but only the Tiny, non-spiced kind. Yet I still have to lie down for a while after eating them. I can never, ever stop in time before the inevitable white sugar crash hits.

@14: "Brocks."

Those are to eat? I always thought they were just to hurl at one's brothers. They're hard as bullets. They work great in a slingshot, too.

tdalec: Really?! I'm sure genuine nougat is great, but I enjoy jelly nougats expressly because they are so very unnatural, like they've been produced in a cartoon universe.

My yearly "it must be spring" ritual has always been to buy (from a bulk bin) ONE of those sugar-candy-coated, gooey "marshmallow" filled candy eggs. In purple. And then to eat it. Learned early that if I have even one more it becomes sickening but that one purple egg is a thing of delight.

The description for Color: White is the best thing that's happened all day.

The biggest disappointment of 2010 has been my acquisition of a box of Necco SweetHearts which contained no white dental-floss mint nor any purple clove flavor hearts. Instead, there were off-putting blue raspberry candies.

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Wait - I thought Megan had the weird-candy beat.

Speaking of which, I finally found a bag of coconut M&Ms at my local Bartells (Admiral). They're delicious - and, apparently, contain no coconut.

Thanks a lot David!

No more orange jelly beans for me. Gaah, fresh poop stink highly concentrated citrus spray taste. Nuh uh, no no no.

But you are right about the red ones.

I'm with 5280 on this. Jager/Sambuca/Absinthe/Randomly Chosen Spirit >>> Sickening Jelly Eggs. Also, chocolate.

my ex-boyfriend likes stale peeps. seriously. so, he'd buy them, slit the clear film covering, then sit them on top of the fridge and forget them until some time after easter. once they were somewhere between cripsy and rock hard is the way he liked them. we broke up.

on road trips, my brother and i like to look through gas station candy racks for odd candy we'd never seen before. once in a small town in illinois i found a bag of green army men gummies. had no intention of eating them. but then one night - during a mad sugar craving fit - i opened the bag expecting to taste the worst thing ever. they were unspeakably good. the only problem is i can't remember what town we were in when i found them and i accidentally threw the bag away and have no idea who made them. - if anyone EVER sees green army gummies - please tell someone at SLOG so they can post it, so i'll see it. PLEASE. i beg of you.

@24, Google saves the day: http://www.candywarehouse.com/gummyarmyg…

Cloves! So that was the ingredient I could never stand in Necco wafers. Who in their right mind puts cloves in candy?

No wonder they always tasted like the dentist's office to me.

This is the season for Cadbury eggs, you guys! Any flavor but the orange.

Jelly beans are awful! Cadbury Creme Eggs are awful! Peeps are awful! Seriously, what is it about Easter that inspires such concoctions?

Love the way you described the flavors, hahaha... In actuality, I love the variety of flavors that the spiced candy offers. If I remember correctly the true flavors are as follows: White-Peppermint,Orange-Ginger,Purple-Clove,Red-Cinnamon,Black-Anise,Pink-Spearmint and lastly Green-Wintergreen.

They are certainly unique flavors and an acquired taste.

This article is dead on! I accidentally purchased a bag of 'spice drops' instead of gum drops once - terrible! The best spiced candy I've ever had was from a local lollipop company, this charming candy. The nutmeg-creme rocks: http://www.etsy.com/listing/62238306/8-h…

This article is dead on! I accidentally purchased a bag of 'spice drops' instead of gum drops once - terrible. The best spiced candy I've ever had was from a local lollipop company, this charming candy. The nutmeg-creme rocks: http://www.etsy.com/listing/62238306/8-h…